Archive for the 'Booknotes' Category

Video reviews, anyone?

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

San Francisco writer Michelle Zaffino just posted this video review of NO ONE YOU KNOW. Honestly, I’d never even heard of bloggers posting video reviews. I think it’s a terrific idea. Thanks, Michelle!

Ben Fong-Torres on the Grateful Dead (+ Pat Sajak, + Elvis)

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009

My friend Ben Fong-Torres will be at the Booksmith on Haight Street tonight at 7:30, talking about his new book, Grateful Dead Scrapbook: The Long, Strange Trip in Stories, Photos, and Memorabilia.
Also, read a terrific blog post here for Asian Connections in which Ben talks about Telling My Story, sparring with Pat Sajak, his [...]

Talking with Julia Glass, tonight

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

Join me tonight at the Jewish Community Center in San Francisco for a conversation with Julia Glass, National Book Award-winning author of Three Junes, The Whole World Over, and I See You Everywhere. The event begins at 8:00. Details here.

Saturday, September 12th, 2009

L’annee brouillard, Sophie Aslanides’s translation of The Year of Fog, is back on the bestseller lists in France, according to Online Star. The Turkish publication reports on the top ten bestselling books in several countries (scroll down to see French list). Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife is number one in England.

Jose Saramago quits blogging

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

The AFP reports that Nobel prize-winning author Jose Saramago, known for his haunting novel Blindness, will say goodbye to the blog that he began writing last September. Why? He needs to finish his novel. Saramago was 85 when he started the blog with a love letter to Lisbon. In his last blog entry, Saramago [...]

Google Books, The New Rumpelstiltskin

Saturday, August 22nd, 2009

There’s a new Rumpelstiltskin in town, but he’s not going after the miller’s daughter. This Rumpelstiltskin has set his sights on authors, who, according to critics, may unwittingly spin him buckets full of gold. Judging from the panic issuing from home offices and cafes across the country, you’d think he was trying to steal our [...]

Breaking through the fog in France

Friday, July 17th, 2009

An article in the French newspaper Le Figaro today on the biggest successes of the summer quotes Laurence Deschamps, the president of the major French retailer Fnac, on the state of book sales. Deschamps says that numbers are up from last year, and two books in particular are breaking records: Toni Morrison’s A Mercy and [...]

Readings for Writers

Wednesday, July 1st, 2009

The Kenyon Review has just published a new anthology of work culled from the magazine over the past seventy years. Editor David Lynn writes:
Readings for Writers is a very different creature from your usual anthology…A different principle of selection comes into play: choosing stories, poems, and essays from across the decades to provoke lively responses [...]

British Bankers and No One You Know

Wednesday, July 1st, 2009

Coutts & Co, the UK private banking arm of the Royal Bank of Scotland, publishes a magazine for its female clients called Coutts Woman. The magazine runs a monthly feature called “Coutts Woman Loves,” and this month, Coutts woman loves No One You Know: “Betrayal and tragedy are the two themes beautifully explored in this [...]

Summer Reading

Saturday, June 27th, 2009

Via the San Francisco Examiner, Poets and Writers Magazine has put together a summer reading list, culled from reader responses and the PW facebook page. Year of Fog is on the list, along with poetry by Robert Haas (Sun Under Wood), fiction by Hunter S. Thompson (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas(, Robert Bolano (2666), [...]

Booknotes, Litlife, & Writing Prompts from bestselling author Michelle Richmond